Sprint Backlog and the Scrum Sprint

The sprint backlog is a list of tasks identified by the Scrum team to be completed during the Scrum
sprint. During the sprint planning meeting, the team selects some
number of product backlog items, usually in the form of user stories,
and identifies the tasks necessary to complete each user story. Most
teams also estimate how many hours each task will take someone on the
team to complete.





It's critical that the team selects the items and size of the sprint
backlog. Because they are the people committing to completing the tasks,
they must be the people to choose what they are committing to during
the Scrum sprint.





The sprint backlog is commonly maintained as a spreadsheet, but it is
also possible to use your defect tracking system or any of a number of
software products designed specifically for Scrum or agile. An example
of a sprint backlog in a spreadsheet looks like this:










During the Scrum sprint, team members are expected to update the
sprint backlog as new information is available, but minimally once per
day. Many teams will do this during the daily scrum. Once each day, the
estimated work remaining in the sprint is calculated and graphed by the
ScrumMaster, resulting in a sprint burndown chart like this one.





The team does its best to pull the right amount of work into the
Scrum sprint, but sometimes too much or too little work is pulled in
during planning. In this case, the team needs to add or remove tasks.





Sprint Backlog and the Scrum Sprint